But hosting a Web chat wouldn’t provide the PR coup that “the world’s first Twittered press conference!” did. Media critics looking for their requisite new angle wouldn’t have found one in a tired old Web-chatted conference. Twitter, on the other hand, is so now—a topic mainstream journalists are eager to write about, a topic many audiences are eager to read about. So what the Twittered conference lacked in substance, it made up for in publicity for the Israeli perspective in the Gaza conflict. (Care to guess how many Americans read Israel’s self defense, unfiltered, courtesy of the Times article?)

And the publicity, while its copy was written by the Israeli government, was given its megaphone by American journalists. It’s telling that, in the Times article, the fact of the press conference’s newness was attributed to Saranga, the media consul—rather than simply stated as fact. And Saranga’s “first governmental press conference ever held on Twitter” claim echoes one of the first tweets he posted to the Israeli Consulate feed: “The conference presents a unique, never-before-seen opportunity for a government to create an open platform for global discussion during a time of crisis.”

The medium, in other words, is part of Saranga’s message—and it’s a message that, apparently, perked the ears and piqued the interest of mainstream journalists. Perhaps the savvy Israeli officials demonstrated in this case, then, lies not just in how well they understand the new media, but in how well they understand the old.